June 11, 2023 Text:  Matthew 9:9-13

Dear Friends in Christ,

What do you do around your table?  We all eat at a table.  How many family discussions happen there?  At the Lueck house we’ve discussed college decisions, family vacations, finances, funeral arrangements and what color to paint a room.  What is on the agenda at your family table?

Today you are invited to join a table.  You can even recline.  Kick back, relax, you are eating with Jesus today.  Sounds good, but we still wonder . . .

“WHO’S AT THE TABLE?”

This table in the house of a man called Matthew.  Matthew has a nice job.  He probably bid for his job with Herod and since money talks, he was assigned as a tax collector.  This meant he could levy a high tax and pocket some of the money.  He is not well-liked because everyone knows what is going on.  Do you want to enter his house and still sit at the table?

Jesus does.  The people are not sitting.  We might call it lounging.  The table is short, and the people are gathered and reclining on their left side.  If you have ever eaten with someone from the Middle East, then you know that the meal is communal and laid back.  The food might just be dumped in a big pile, and you eat with your fingers.  There is a lot of fellowship and visiting.  Their customs have not changed in thousands of years.  Pull up a pillow and enjoy.

But can you enjoy a meal with a tax collector?  These people are greedy.  Pocketing money, buying stuff, dishonest.  But you join.  Inflation, especially the cost of groceries, is cutting into your income.  You are concerned about your investments.  Are taxes going up again?  You get anxious.  So, when the Lord calls for giving and generosity, you think mostly of yourself.  Open the tightened fist, because it’s really not your money.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23). Who shouldn’t be reclining with Jesus?  We shouldn’t be.

Another group at the table are the “sinners.”  Let’s narrow that down to prostitutes.  They sell their body for money or drugs.  The sanctity of sexuality is lost.  Sex sells instead of being a sacred gift for husband and wife.  Are we under this umbrella?  Things are exploited, exposed, explicit.  It is difficult to turn away.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Who shouldn’t be eating with Jesus?  We shouldn’t be.

What other sinners are at the table?  Those who can’t control their mouths.  Filthy words.  Coarse talk.  Do we ever find this at our table?  Lashing out with hateful words.  Posting something about someone that isn’t true.  Not calling out the profanity you hear.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Who shouldn’t be in the same room with Jesus?  We shouldn’t be.

Standing off to the side are the Pharisees with their questions.  Condescending as they compare themselves with those at the table.  We too stand off to the side and make judgments.  We get things wrong because we are lazy and don’t take the time to know the truth.  We compare ourselves with others to feel better.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Waiter, get me out of here, I shouldn’t be eating with Jesus.

And yet there is a welcome from this Jesus.  He has invited me?  Really?  This meal brought people together.  No reservations.  No prime spots around the table.  When Jesus welcomes sinners, everything changes.  This table is a time of warm fellowship, and the invitation includes everyone.

It may be the house of Matthew, but the host is Jesus.  He speaks and everyone listens.  The Pharisees go after Jesus, not Matthew.  Why is Jesus doing this?  Why be so hospitable to these sinful people?  Because they need Jesus.  They need his mercy.  His mercy flows from the sacrifice of himself.  Let’s finish the sentence I’ve been repeating from Romans, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus left a table the night he was betrayed.  He heads to the table of the cross.  He leaves the Holy City and on the cross he shows his mercy.  He shows mercy by sacrificing himself.  All the greed, all the lust, all the worry, all the condescension – all of it, he has taken on himself.  His sacrifice brings his mercy of forgiveness.  Jesus welcomes us with this forgiveness.

He would rise three days later from the dead.  Not long after he would be at another meal.  This one at the shoreline.  With the disciples.  Jesus provides the meal with 153 fish.  After finishing the meal, at a literal table where things get solved, Jesus restores Peter who had denied him.  He welcomed him back into the family, back to the table of Christ’s mercy for all eternity.

You are welcomed at a table.  We call it an altar.  Jesus is the host.  Jesus welcomes us with his body and blood given and shed on the cross for our forgiveness, life, and salvation.  We receive mercy.  We receive sacrifice.  We fellowship.  We leave the table, following him.  Our greed is transformed to generosity.  We use the gift of sexuality rightly within marriage.  We use our words to encourage not tear down.  We respect others and lift them up.  We show mercy.

The table is ready.  The host, Jesus our Savior, welcomes you.

Amen.    

June 4, 2023 – Trinity Sunday         Text:  Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Dear Friends in Christ,

Where do you see the beauty of God’s creation?  For us flatlanders sometimes we don’t always see it.  We see it in the mountains.  Last summer for the Lueck’s the Rockies were beautiful, love the mountains.  How about standing on a beach staring at the vast ocean?  The only place that ever felt different when I arrived was Hawaii.  When Toni and I got off the plane on our honeymoon, the place had a feel I had never experienced.  What a wonderful place to view what the Lord crafted for us.

The Old Testament Reading for this Trinity Sunday is how the true God, the Holy Trinity, created everything.  And it tells us a lot more than how this beautiful creation came about.

“IN THE CREATION, WE LEARN THE TRUE ESSENCE OF THE TRIUNE GOD”

We should love God’s creation as it is laid out in Genesis.  But we can’t make creation our god.  We can’t say we are worshipping God on a golf course, in a boat or hiking a mountain.  He comes to us in His Word and Sacrament in this sanctuary.

We are here because we believe the creation account.  Many do not and this leads to a myriad of problems.  If everything got here by a series of random events, what’s the point?  What are we living for?  Somebody has to be behind all of this, and it is not a middleman using evolution.  God has all the power and wisdom.  Just listen to this.

“Let there be light!” – there is!  Day 2 brings the atmosphere around the earth, to prepare for what follows.  Day 3:  dry land and the basics of food everyone needs.  Day 4 we get sun, moon, stars.  Think of this:  Evolution could never set plants before the sun by billions of years, because the plants then couldn’t conduct photosynthesis.  On the other hand, for one day, God did just that – and He provided the light and warmth.  The next day come the birds and fish.  Food. And the following day more food for our bodies as the other animals are created.  Each day “God saw that it was good.  This is the essence of God.  “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”

Now verse 26:  “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” Today is Trinity Sunday, when we consider the incomprehensible reality of one God in three persons.  You heard the hints of the Trinity in those verses, didn’t you?  God said, “Let us make man in our image.” – plural.  Already at creation we see the Holy Spirit moving on the waters.  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all working together in the creation, even talking it over.

We learn the most about the true essence of God when He created man.  “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him; male and female he created them…And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (v. 26-27, 31)

Why did God create man and do all the work of creating?  Did He want to show off his brilliant engineering skill and create a world that didn’t collapse in on itself?  Did He want to show off His artistic genius?  No, He created this beautiful engineering marvel for us, you and I, to live in.

Why create us?  God is all about loving.  From all eternity, before anyone or anything existed, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were in a relationship.  The Father loves the Son.  The Son receives the Father’s love.  The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to deliver and share that love.  That tells why “he created them male and female.”  He loves us and He wants His creation to continue in that love.  God is our Father and our Brother.  That is the best part of the true essence of God.

We top it off with this.  God created us even though He knew it would cost his own life.  This all-wise God was not caught by surprise when we sinned.  He knew all along we’d sin; He knew from eternity.  He knew that when we sinned, we would have to be cut off from Him forever in hell unless He took our sin upon himself.  And He knew that taking our sin upon himself meant Jesus, the Son, would have to die for it on the cross.  The Father knew if He created us he’d have to give up His Son to death and hell.  And He did it anyway.

None of us would do that.  If I have a child, another child of mine will have to die?  Our hearts don’t think that way.  Here is the essence of the triune God:  He did!  The Father says, “I’ll give up my Son.”  The Son says, “Most willingly, I’ll do it.”  And the Holy Spirit is telling the world so that we receive the eternal life it brings.

Never miss what God has done even in flatland central Illinois.  We help to feed the world.  We are blessed beyond compare when you look at what the Lord has provided us.  The Triune God has been so good.  The whole universe is His.  Look what He did to provide you an eternal future.  That’s the true essence of the triune, the one true God.

Amen.        

May 28, 2023 – Pentecost Text:  John 16:5-11

Dear Friends in Christ,

We all know what it is like to speak with a counselor.  Oh, maybe you’ve never gone to see your Pastor or a counselor in an office, but you have been counseled by a parent, a teacher, a coach, a trusted friend.  I have the privilege to do a lot of counseling.  One of the keys is to be a good listener but then to speak words of guidance and wisdom.  Now, sometimes the counselee doesn’t want to hear what they need to do.  That shouldn’t stop the counselor.  The truth needs to be spoken.

This is what the Holy Spirit does.  He speaks the truth that needs to be spoken – both to the believer and to the unbeliever.  This is what Jesus is describing in our text, how the Holy Spirit will speak.

“COUNSELING WITH CONVICTION”

The text says, “When he (the Holy Spirit) comes he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgement.” (v. 8). He will counsel the world with conviction.  If a person is “convicted” of wrongdoing, do they believe they have done wrong or not?  That depends on the sense of the word.  To be “convicted” of something may mean exactly that they do believe, and powerfully.  Many people, we say, have “strong convictions.”  But many criminals are also “convicted,” found guilty of crimes they never admit, crimes they refuse to take responsibility for.  Their “conviction” is not their own solid belief, but rather the solid belief of the jury.  The Holy Spirit will convict the world.  He may give us strong convictions, but He certainly declares us guilty of sin.

Jesus had to go away for the Counselor, the Holy Spirit to come.  We just celebrated that a week ago Thursday on Ascension Day.  Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father where he rules.  Counselor can also be translated here as “Helper.”  In the time of Jesus, it was a legal term that referred to any person who helped someone in trouble with the law.  The Holy Spirit will always stand by Christ’s people. 

The Counselor convicts us in regard to  sin and judgment.  That is the Law.  He wants us to see that we can be pretty awful people at times.  You know the feeling down in the pit of your stomach when you have messed up.  We are the prisoner that stands there hearing the guilty verdict.  Are we off to prison?  Will we be locked up forever?

No.  Because our Counselor stands with us.  He convicts us in regard to righteousness.  What is righteousness?  It is what we enjoy because of Christ’s sacrificial death.  We are saved from prison.  We are not locked up forever.  We have freedom because of the cross.  We have free will because of the empty tomb.  We have a forever home in heaven where Christ has ascended to.  The prince of the world now stands condemned – we are free! 

No one but the Holy Spirit can reveal to a person that a righteous status before God does not depend on good works but on Christ’s death on the cross.  Our Counselor speaks words of guidance, and truth, and wisdom.  He is a helper and a comforter. 

Counselors use words.  The Counselor uses the Word.  On Pentecost Sunday, the Church is empowered to use the Word.  We are to go into all the world.  Through water and the Word we all have been made “counselors” for the Lord Jesus.  Every time that we speak faithfully God’s Word we are counseling.  Every time we share God’s Word with a hurting person we are counseling.  Even if are words are done in a halting manner, the Holy Spirit can still use for His purpose.  We can counsel with comfort and with conviction.  People need to hear the truth not only of their sin but of the saving work of Christ in their lives.  

This Helper, this Holy Spirit, this Counselor is such a blessing to us.  He is counseling through us.  The Counselor comes to you. 

Amen.